


Wordpicture: Death

by Deannie



Series: Wordpictures [16]
Category: Sandman (the comic book)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-29
Updated: 2003-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie





	Wordpicture: Death

Billy Thornton is ninety-two years old. He's always been Billy. Even in the army. He's survived two world wars and fought in one of them. He still has the shrapnel scars to prove it.  


Right now, he's lying in his bed, his daughters at his side. His wife Camilla died a decade ago. Five years ago, he began to joke about remarrying.  


He's a city boy, and has been mugged twelve times--and he assures anyone who'll listen that he never went down without a fight.  


But tonight, he will.  


Tonight, she'll wander into his bedroom, past Helen and Rita and their husbands, and she'll take his hand. And he'll come with her with a smile on his face.  


Johnny Borlin is another story.  


He's twenty-one and he's been running with a rough crowd for far too long. When she crouches down next to him in that deserted alley where too many bullets will pierce his flesh, he'll rant and rave and tell her to go to hell. He doesn't know she's not allowed in.  


The young never seem to understand her, and the old and the sick ask her why she took so long.  


Mortals are fascinating. They cling so tightly to their lives sometimes. They beg to live, no matter how bad their circumstances. She's seen the best and worst of them, and still she marvels.  


And still she comes to them, one at a time, and takes their hands.  


As a job, it's not bad. And it beats flipping burgers, hands down.

* * *  
The End


End file.
